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December 07, 2010

what the hell was she doing in the football game anyway

Turkish Republic is doing a really very good job in democratising the counrty. A new level of understanding has spread all across the republic, and now we are all enjoying the privilidges of the new constitutional laws which was accepted in a nationwide referendum which was held on September 12th this year. Ironically, this is the very same date the nation has accepted the constitution constituted by the military power in 1980. Nobody had seen how anti-democratic the constitution initially was; but no worries. It is all history now and Turkey is leaping towards a more open society.

OR NOT.

Last Sunday, December 5 that is, some university students were beaten down by the police who are supposed to maintain the peace in the community, because they were obviously ordered to stop these terrorist minded youngsters who dared to protest PM Erdoğan who is allegedly the founder of the new democracy in Turkey.

It seems like a free university means a collection of buildings in which the headscarved girls can enter freely, and nothing more. Or at least, this is what our shallow liberals want you to believe. In any political forum, you can bet that there will always be someone who brings up this headscarf issue as if this is the only indication of a democratic Turkey.

That's very true: everybody has the right to get proper education no matter how they want to express themselves. Girls can wear headscarves and boys can wear Taliban-alike beards. I don't have to approve their way of life.
But yet, this is really not the only criteria in a democratic society, and unfortunately, these fierce headscarf supporters mostly fail to criticize when police decides to use brutal force on students.

Very interestingly, on the very same day, the very same police force failed to prevent a very harsh fight between the holigan fans of two opposite football teams.

Violence in football games is a pretty much regular scene in Turkey, and i honestly don't like football. So i didn't really pay attention to just another crap in our new democratic society who can't even tolerate to the opposite football team... That's only until i went to my regular barber shop this evening after the office hours. The TV was open. The news was on. And there was just this another guy, probably another regular customer and we were all hearing this news about the holigan violence.

And the news said that, a woman was severely injured because she was hit by an empty beer bottle which was blindly thrown to the crowd. She was severaly injured and it will take a hell lot of time for her to fully recover.

And what the hell was she doing in the football game anyway?

Right. This is the exact bullshit that other guy said. I tried to shut up, knowing that my response would not possibly open a new perspective in his pathetic mind. But he just kept talking the same crap, so i loudly said "Is it banned to go to watch a game? People can go anywhere they want."

He was having his hair cut on another chair, and me on another. And that's when my barber started talking to me, probably triyng to distract me from him. And guess what. He was in that game, with his wife. And he was just lucky that he was in the scene only 2 minutes after the figght was over.

And i am sure the guy has talked behind my back when i left the barber shop.

Are there any social and political conclusions which can be derived from this simple experience i had not more than 6 hours ago? You can bet on it. But unlike our shallow liberals who love to draw the most optimistic pictures based on their very limited encounters with the most elite rich conservaties, i prefer to let you draw your own conclusion. And you are free to share your thought with me.